Dread curdled the contents of Lore’s stomach. They’d never had to complete an assignment in under two weeks before. “What happens if you don’t make your deadline?”
Sin’s gaze skipped away, and she retrieved her knife.
“Sin?” Lore’s voice cracked. For the first time in a very long time, he was afraid. Not for himself, but for Sin, who had been through more than her fair share of misery in her life.
“He’ll sell me,” she said between clenched teeth. “He’ll hack off my arm so I can’t use it to kill, and sell me to the Neethuls.”
Oh, Jesus. Neethuls were an incredibly cruel race who bred, trained, and traded slaves… particularly sex slaves. Before being sold to Detharu, Sin had suffered as a slave who had to do anything her master wanted, from selling drugs to killing enemies, but the Neethuls would make what she’d gone through seem like a day at the beach.
“That won’t happen,” he swore. “I’ll help you take out your target. Who is it?”
“You have your own mark to deal with.” She tested the edge of her blade with her thumb. “What happens if you miss your deadline?”
“Nothing.”
Her gaze turned steely, silver shards against a black backdrop. “Bullshit. Tell me.”
“If I miss the deadline, Deth gets to double my time of service,” he lied.
She regarded him warily, as though trying to decide if he was telling the truth or not. She had a tendency to question everything, especially if it came from Lore, and he wondered if she’d ever fully trust him again.
“You won’t miss your deadline,” she said finally. “You never do. So what happened while you were trying to take out your mark? It’s not like you to get caught out like that.”
Outside the open window, the high-pitched warble of a bird sounded like laughter, which was fitting. “I got cocky.”
“Now that I believe,” she said wryly. “So who is it? Your mark?”
It was a question no assassin asked another—the risk of someone homing in on your kill and stealing it from under you was too great—but Lore and Sin had always shared deets. “Remember I told you about that human as**ole I brought back to life? It’s him. Should have left him dead, I guess.”
Sin’s grip on her knife tightened. “Ah… isn’t that guy friends with…” She trailed off, because she refused to say it. Our brothers.
“Yeah. It’s okay. I’ll handle it so they never find out it was me.” Doubt set her jaw in a stubborn line, so he steered the conversation away from Kynan and the potential trouble Lore was in. “What about you? Who’s your mark?”
Sin stretched out on the couch and tucked an arm behind her head. Dark circles under her half-lidded eyes revealed her exhaustion. “Some werewolf. Loner. Should be a quick in and out.”
Sounded like an easy enough hit for Sin, but still, the second Kynan was dead, Lore was going to help Sin with the werewolf, or warg, as they liked to be called. No way was she going to be sold to the Neethul.
A faint buzzing noise snagged his attention, and he heaved himself out of the chair to grab his cell phone from the scrub pants’ pocket. Figured it would be Eidolon. Again. Sighing, he opened up the message… and promptly stopped breathing.
Come to my apartment. Now. We need to discuss Kynan.
Five
Lore stood outside Eidolon’s door, unable to shake the feeling that he was walking into a trap. And yet, like a cat with a string dangling before it, he couldn’t resist.
But that didn’t mean he was a total chump. He’d play this to his advantage, would use this opportunity to learn anything he could about Kynan. Usually Lore had weeks to plan a hit, to educate himself about his marks’ jobs, friends, families, vulnerabilities, and habits, but the expiration date on this assignment was bearing down on him too fast for comfort and with extra complications, and the whole thing was about to go sour.
As he raised his fist to knock on the door, a tingling sensation prickled the back of his neck.
“Well, well,” a female voice purred. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Idess.” He pivoted around. She stood a few feet away, her faded, ripped jeans revealing tantalizing slashes of skin from her slim thighs to her knees, where the denim disappeared into heeled leather boots. Lore entertained an image of lying on the ground with her straddling him, one sexy boot on each side of his chest as she lowered herself onto him, and shit, his hormones were out of control lately.
She cocked her head to the side, and her ponytail swung behind her, the curled tip brushing her hip and only adding to that straddle fantasy. “What are you doing?”
“I think you know.”
Her sly smile made her eyes sparkle. “You want to see how much your brothers know about you trying to kill Kynan.”
“I don’t want to kill him,” he said easily. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Idess tsked. “I wasn’t born yesterday, demon.”
“Angels are born?” Breathing deeply to take in her rich, spicy scent, he took a step closer, testing his boundaries. Her chin came up a fraction of an inch, but she didn’t budge. “So all the pure, holier-than-thou shit is bullshit? You guys are f**ked into existence like everyone else? Like us lowly demons?”
That sinful, wicked mouth pursed. “You know what I meant. There’s no need to be crude.”
“There’s always a need to be crude.” He raked his gaze from her head to her toes, lingering on all the sweet spots. Mostly, he was just being obnoxious. Mostly. Her sweet spots really did deserve extra ogling. “Especially when you want to shock the shit out of some prissy little angel.”
“Prissy?” She brought her ponytail over her shoulder and played with it idly, her fingers stroking the gold bands that secured the exotic length at evenly spaced intervals. “Stay away from Kynan, because next time you try to harm him, I’ll spank you. And not in the fun way, either. How’s that for prissy?” Winking, she waggled her fingers at him and poofed out of the hallway.
Man, he hated poofers. You couldn’t ever nail them down. Not that he wouldn’t like to nail her.
And what was that about spanking? Because all spankings were the good kind. If she was going to threaten him, she had a lot to learn.
He knocked on the door, and Eidolon must have been right there, because it swung open. Without so much as a hello, Eidolon turned and stalked down the hall, obviously expecting to be followed. As if a Ph.D. made him God.
Lore went after him, catching up to his brother in the huge living room, where a black and tan mutt lay on the leather couch, valiantly trying to ignore the ferret playing with his tail.
Eidolon rounded on Lore. “What’s up with you and Kynan? And don’t bullshit me. We know you want him dead. I want you to promise to leave him the f**k alone.”
Idess, you little rat. “Look, whatever Cookie told you, it’s a lie. I don’t want anything to do with Kynan—”
Suddenly, his back was kissing the wall and Eidolon’s fist was tangled in his shirt. Gold eyes glowed with fury. “I said, don’t bullshit me,” he snarled. “We know. You need to lay off this obsession with Gem. She’s Kynan’s, and that isn’t going to change, even if he’s dead.”
Lore’s own temper flared, and he dragged in a deep breath, fighting to stay calm. Raging out on his brother wasn’t going to help anything, and really, the fact that E thought this was about Gem was a good thing. “Fine. Okay, I get it. Gem’s taken.” He was over her, and if his brothers believed it, they might leave him alone if he promised to let it go. “Now step off.”
Muscles twitched in Eidolon’s jaw, and Lore heard the grind of enamel as he worked his molars together. Finally, with a shove, he released Lore. “I’m dead serious. This isn’t about protecting a friend. This is about saving a brother.”
“Yeah, I know you’re tight with Kynan—”
“No. It’s about saving you.” Eidolon jabbed his finger at Lore’s chest. “You so much as breathe in Kynan’s direction, and your life is going to mean jack shit. Do you understand?”
“I can handle Idess.”
Eidolon’s face was grim. “Just promise me, Lore. Promise me you’ll stay away from Kynan. And while you’re in avoidance mode, add Shade and Wraith to your list.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Wraith drawled from the entrance, where he, Shade, and Kynan stood, all glaring daggers at him. Perfect. Just perfect.
Shade pushed past Wraith and Kynan. “What the fuck, E? Nice that Idess had to clue us in on your little get-together.”
“Maybe your invitation got lost in the mail,” Lore offered.
Eidolon put himself between Lore and his other brothers. “Calm down. Lore has agreed to stay away from Kynan.”
Wraith pegged Lore with a hard stare. “I don’t believe him.”
“I don’t care what you believe,” Lore shot back. “You guys can go f**k yourselves. I’m out of here.” He fired up his gift and headed toward the hall. He could just brush by Ky—
A fist slammed into his jaw, spinning him into Eidolon.
Idess stood there, looking pretty proud of herself, and he supposed she should be—she had one hell of an uppercut.
Wraith came out of nowhere, making like a linebacker and taking Lore to the carpet. Lore snarled, bucking his brother hard enough to throw him, but Wraith moved like a phantom, somehow avoiding Lore’s deadly accurate spin-kick. Shade drove his boot into Lore’s side, and Lore grunted, but he leaped to his feet and got in his own well-placed kick to Shade’s thigh. Now, he could rush Kynan—
“Stop!” Eidolon’s roar froze everyone except the animals, who scampered out of the room. “Let him leave.”
“He wasn’t trying to leave,” Idess said. “He was gunning for Kynan.” She rubbed her forearm as though it hurt. “He’s still planning to kill him.”
Eidolon’s eyes went from gold to red, and he shoved Wraith and Shade away, fisted Lore’s shirt again, and brought them nose-to-nose, his entire body shaking. “You said you were done with Gem.” There was so much rage in his voice that it was warped, hard to understand. “Why are you doing this? Answer me, damn you!”
“Because I don’t have a choice,” Lore shouted. “He’s an assignment.”
A flicker of uncertainty crossed Eidolon’s face, and Lore used the moment to slam him into the wall and rush Kynan. He needed to be done with this, once and for all. If his brothers killed him afterward, who cared? Hell, bring it on. At least he’d die knowing Sin would be safe.
And free.
A fierce sting at the base of his skull made him stumble, and Idess’s grip on his biceps brought him to a full stop.
“Take another step and I release the bore worm,” she said, and ice froze the marrow in his bones. Being eaten alive from the inside was not on his list of fun ways to die.
She pressed the length of her body against his left side, gluing herself to him so she could feel even the smallest twitch, the tiniest warning that he might fight back. Smart cookie.
Her fingers gouged his arm. “I can’t allow Lore to harm Kynan. So either one of you kill him, or I will.”
Shade, Wraith, and Kynan raised their hands to volunteer. How special. Brotherly love ran like syrup in the room.
Lore weighed his options. He could kill Idess… but once she was dead, he doubted he’d make it through the advancing wall of demon brothers to get to Kynan.
And if he failed to kill her, he had a bore worm attached to his spine. If she sent it into his body, one of the side-effects of being eaten alive was that it would render him susceptible to commands, and she could make Lore do anything she wanted, from clucking like a chicken, to stepping in front of a bus.
The upside was that she’d be reluctant to use it. As long as the creature was inside its host, the summoner suffered nearly debilitating pain. Bore worms were temporary measures, at best.
As his brothers and Kynan closed in on him like rabid wolves, the first stirrings of apprehension that he might not make it out of this scrape alive rippled through him. He didn’t fear death; he feared dying before he could make sure Sin was safe.
The very real possibility that he was going to die right now brought a veil of lava-red cascading down over his vision. He breathed deeply, willing it to recede as he glared at his brothers. “Back the hell off—”
Idess spun him into the wall so he was eating plaster, her pelvis hugging his ass—in a great fit, he couldn’t help but notice, even through his growing anger. Her plump br**sts rubbed on his back, and he popped an erection as the sexual side-effect of his rage took hold.
“It’s a little late for backing off,” she murmured against his ear, and his blood thickened with both fury and desire. “The only reason I haven’t killed you yet is that I want to know who wants Kynan dead. Plus, I thought I’d allow your brothers that honor.”
“Aren’t you the vicious one,” he growled. “That’s hot.” I’m going to kill these guys and then f**k you hard. The thought blasted into his brain, pumped in on the rage that was poisoning his system. He panted, desperate to come down from this, because he was only one insult, or one prick of pain away from no-return.
And then he could guarantee that males were going to die. The female…
Idess jammed her knee into a pressure point in his thigh and tripped his land mine. Lore exploded out of her grip, knocking her into Shade. They both went down. Kynan. Kill the human first—